Glaze wiping apparatus for graining furniture

ABSTRACT

Wiping apparatus for use in the graining of furniture includes a rotating brush and a web of absorbent material such as paper guided in contact with the brush for removing excess glaze picked up from the workpiece. In a preferred embodiment the device is adapted to be supported by a counterbalanced cable so that an operator can easily move it over the surface of a slowly moving or stationary workpiece. The brush is driven by an air motor which is controlled by the operator by means of a trigger actuator. An air cylinder feeds the absorbent web a predetermined increment each time the trigger actuator is operated.

United States Patent [191 Susnjara Nov. 18, 1975 GLAZE WIPING APPARATUSFOR GRAINING FURNITURE [73] Assignee: Thermwood Corporation, Dale, Ind.

[22] Filed: Aug. 12, 1974 211 Appl. No.: 496,639

[52] US. Cl. 15/23; 15/77; 101/425; 118/203; 1l8/DlG. 9 [51] Int. Cl.A46B 13/02 [58] Field of Search 15/21 E, 23, 24, 38, 44, 15/48, 77, 97;118/203, DIG. 9; 101/156, 168, 425

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,829,589 lO/1931 Georgas15/24 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 471,147 lO/l914 France 15/23Primary E.tamz'nerEdward L. Roberts Attorney, Agent, or FirmBarry L.Clark ABSTRACT Wiping apparatus for use in the graining of furnitureincludes a rotating brush and a web of absorbent ma terial such as paperguided in contact with the brush for removing excess glaze picked upfrom the workpiece. In a preferred embodiment the device is adapted tobe supported by a counterbalanced cable so that an operator can easilymove it over the surface of a slowly moving or stationary workpiece. Thebrush is driven by an air motor which is controlled by the operator bymeans of a trigger actuator. An air cylinder feeds the absorbent web apredetermined increm'ent each time the trigger actuator is operated.

10 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures U.S. Patent Nov. 18, 1975 GLAZE WIPINGAPPARATUS FOR GRAINING FURNITURE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Thisinvention relates to the field of graining and finishing furniture andparticularly to the finishing of molded plastic furniture front andpanel members being transported on a conveyor apparatus past a pluralityof work stations where successive coatings of finish are applied andpartially removed to achieve a graining effect. Where the panel membersare made of plastic which is to be finished so as to appear as wood itis conventional to spray a base finish coat uniformly over the part andallow it to dry. A darker glaze or stain coat is then sprayed over thebase coat. Before the glaze coat has dried, it is brushed by hand. Thebrushing forces the glaze into the grain and other recessed areas of thematerial being finished. The brush is also used to remove most of theglaze from the non-recessed areas. Since glaze material is being removedit is necessary to clean the brush very'often in order to achieve adesired finish. As the brush becomes more filled with glaze it is lessand less able to remove the glaze from the workpiece, with the resultbeing that the appearance of successive workpieces cannot be absolutelyuniform unless the brush is cleaned at extremely short intervals. Sincethe workpieces being finished are usually moving on a conveyor past theoperator who must make several dozen hand brush strokes per article itis possible for different workpieces to look considerably differentdepending on the number of operators handling them or the physicalcondition of a given operator at a given instant. Although U.S. Pat. No.3,693,585 teaches that a wiping roll and scraping blade can be used todistribute and wipe off excess coating from a panel of plywood or otherflat material, such structure would not be suitable for threedimensional patterned panels such as those non-uniformity, it would bevery desirable to have a powered apparatus which could accomplish thetask. It is among the objects of the invention to provide a poweredbrushing apparatus which can simulate the ap- 'pearance of hand brushingwhile preventing the removed glaze from being redeposited on theworkpiece.

' SUMMARY a The aforementioned and other objects are attained bythe'apparatus of the present invention which basically comprises arotating brush powered by an air motor. A roll of absorbent paper ismounted within the device so as to pass between the brush and a metalbackup member. The paper, which wipes excess glaze from the brush, isfed by a pair of rubber rollers so that a new section can be presentedto the brush whenever desired. A small air cylinder which moves in onedirection each time the brush motor is actuated advances the rubberrollers so as to move the paper about 1 inch. When the air valve for thebrush motor is released, a spring returns the air cylinder to itsinitial position while a one way clutch holds the paper advancingrollers in their advanced position. The wiper unit hangs from a supportcable which is counterbalanced so that the operator needs to expend onlythe effort required to push the brush against the workpiece and move itup and down in order to cover the entire surface since the workpiece ispreferably moving in front of the operator on a conveyor. In practice, adownward pass would be made at the right end of the workpiece. An upwardpass would then be made to cover the immediately adjacent unwiped areafollowed by additional downward and upward passes until the entire piecehad been brushed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view showingthe relationship of the wiping apparatus of the invention to a workpiecebeing finished;

FIG. 2 is a view of the right end of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a top view of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1; and a FIG. 4 is aview of the left end of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1 with portionsbroken away.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to the drawings, andparticularly to FIG. 1, the improved glaze wiping apparatus indicatedgenerally at 10 includes a right side frame member 12, a left side framemember 14 and a top frame member 16. A

hook eye member 18 fastened to the frame member 16 is adapted to beengaged by a hook member 20 mounted on one end of a support cable 22.The support cable 22 is mounted on pulley members 24 which are mountedon a support (not shown) such as a ceiling. A counterweight 26 on theother end of the cable 22 balances the weight of the wiper apparatus 10so that an operator can readily manipulate it up and down over thesurface of a workpiece indicated generally at 30 which is slowly movingon a conveyor (not shown) in the direction indicated by the arrow.

The workpiece 30 is shown as being a cabinet front member having aplurality of recessed panel segments 32 and surface segments 34 whichare joined to the recessed segments by side segments 36. The workpiece30 could be wood or other solid material but preferably achieves itsthree dimensional configuration by being vacuum thermoformed from a flatplastic sheet. As shown, the workpiece 30 would have a dryed basecoating of finish covered by a darker, wet glaze or stain coat.

The purpose of the rotating wiper brush 40 is to provide a verticallybrushed appearance to the glaze, force the glaze into depressions in thesurfaces 32-36 which give the appearance of grain, and remove the excessglaze from the surfaces. The excess glaze is wiped from the brush 40 byan absorbent paper web 42 which contacts it. Since the rotating brush 40cannot remove all the glaze from recessed areas like the junctures ofsegments 32 and 36, the glaze left in such locations will provide a verydesirable shadow effect which is very pleasing .to the eye and equal tothe effect achieyed by hand brushing or wiping.

Hand grip portions 46, 48 mounted on the apparatus 10 permit it to bereadily controlled by an operator. The right hand grip portion 48comprises an air valve having a spring loaded trigger 50 which issqueezed by the operator to admit air from the supply line 52 dottedline position 62' shown in FIG. 2 when the air trigger 50 is squeezedand holds it there until the trigger is released, at which time thespring 64 returns it to its unactuated position. A one-way clutch (notshown) interposed between the lever 62 and lower roller shaft'66 permitsthe shaft 66 and the lower rubber drive roller 68 mounted on it torotate when the movable cylinder shaft 60 is driven downwardly but toremain stationary when the cylinder shaft 60 moves upwardly. A sprocket70 fixedly mounted on the lower roller shaft 66 transmits rotarymovement from the lower shaft to a sprocket 71 on the upper roller shaft72 and roller 74 mounted on it by means of sprocket chain 76. Since thetwo rubber drive rollers 68, 74 are in pressure contact with the paperweb 42 by virtue of the spring plate member 78 it will be readilyevident that the paper will advance upwardly a predetermined incrementeach time the trigger is actuated. Depending on how much glaze theoperator wishes to remove from the workpiece 30 the trigger 50 can beactuated to present a clean wiping surface to the brush 40 as often asdesired. Generally, it is sufficient to actuate the trigger followingeach upward or downward pass over the workpiece.

' The spring plate member 78 not only holds the paper web 42 in contactwith the drive rollers 68, 74 but also provides the backup for the paperas it is contacted by the rotating brush 40. Tabs 80 on the spring plate78 serve as a means to anchor the spring plate to the side frame membersl2, 14 where they are held by screws 82. The screws 82 also anchor thebrackets 84 which carry the roll of paper toweling 42. The papertoweling is preferably of the non-perforated type generally used inindustrial towel dispensers for drying ones hands. The rotary brush 40is shown' as having a plurality of individual separated brush segmentsbut could also utilize a continuous brush.

It has been found that use of the wiper apparatus of the invention hasprovided much faster and more uniform wiping than hand brushing and withfar less effort on the part of the operator. Although an air motor 54has been shown on one end of the rotary brush 40 it will be obvious thata similar motorcould also be connected to the other end of the brush todouble the power supplied to the brush. Furthermore,.although anintermittent feed arrangement has been disclosed for the paper web 42,it would of course be possible to have the paper feed continuously asthe brush rotates. Such an arrangement would, however, use much morepaper than the disclosed intermittent arrangement which feeds about a 1inch length each time it is actuated.

I claim as my invention:

1. Wiping apparatus for brushing and removing a portion of the wet stainor glaze on an article of furniture being finished comprising a housing,rotary brush means mounted on the housing, powered drive means forrotating said rotary brush means, a supply of absorbent web meansmounted on the housing, guide means mounted on the housing for guidingfresh portions of said absorbent web means into contact with said rotarybrush means so as to remove excess stain or glaze therefrom, and meansfor advancing fresh portions of said absorbent web means into contactwith said rotary brush means.

2. The wiping apparatus of claim 1 wherein said housing includes hangingmeans for permitting said apparatus to be supported by a downwardlyextending cable.

3. The wiping apparatus of claim 2 wherein the weight of said apparatusis counterbalanced by a counterbalance weight on the opposite end ofsaid cable.

4. The wiping apparatus of claim 1 wherein said housing has a pair ofspaced hand grip portions mounted thereon.

5. The wiping apparatus of claim 4 wherein one of said hand gripportions includes means for actuating both said powered drive means andsaid means for advancing said web means.

6. The wiping apparatus of claim 1 wherein said means for advancing saidweb means produces a predetermined increment of movement of said webeach time the rotary brush drive means is actuated.

7. The wiping apparatus of claim 6 wherein said means for advancing saidweb means comprises an air cylinder.

8. The wiping apparatus of claim 7 wherein said housing includes atleast one hand grip portion, said at least one hand grip portioncomprising an air valve body and air flow control trigger forcontrolling the flow of air from a remote source thereof to said aircylinder and to said powered drive means, said powered drive meanscomprising an air motor.

9. The wiping apparatus of claim 1 wherein said housing has bracketmeans mounted thereon for supporting a roll of said absorbent web meansand a spring plate member for supporting said web in contact with saidbrush means, said spring plate member further including portions whichbias said web into contact with at least one feed roller which is drivenby said means for advancing.

10. The wiping apparatus of claim 9 wherein said spring plate memberincludes portions on either side of said brush for biasing said web intocontact with a pair of spaced feed rollers which are driven by saidmeans for advancing.

1. Wiping apparatus for brushing and removing a portion of the wet stainor glaze on an article of furniture being finished comprising a housing,rotary brush means mounted on the housing, powered drive means forrotating said rotary brush means, a supply of absorbent web meansmounted on the housing, guide means mounted on the housing for guidingfresh portions of said absorbent web means into contact with said rotarybrush means so as to remove excess stain or glaze therefrom, and meansfor advancing fresh portions of said absorbent web means into contactwith said rotary brush means.
 2. The wiping apparatus of claim 1 whereinsaid housing includes hanging means for permitting said apparatus to besupported by a downwardly extending cable.
 3. The wiping apparatus ofclaim 2 wherein the weight of said apparatus is counterbalanced by acounterbalance weight on the opposite end of said cable.
 4. The wipingapparatus of claim 1 wherein said housing has a pair of spaced hand gripportions mounted thereon.
 5. The wiping apparatus of claim 4 wherein oneof said hand grip portions includes means for actuating both saidpowered drive means and said means for advancing said web means.
 6. Thewiping apparatus of claim 1 wherein said means for advancing said webmeans produces a predetermined increment of movement oF said web eachtime the rotary brush drive means is actuated.
 7. The wiping apparatusof claim 6 wherein said means for advancing said web means comprises anair cylinder.
 8. The wiping apparatus of claim 7 wherein said housingincludes at least one hand grip portion, said at least one hand gripportion comprising an air valve body and air flow control trigger forcontrolling the flow of air from a remote source thereof to said aircylinder and to said powered drive means, said powered drive meanscomprising an air motor.
 9. The wiping apparatus of claim 1 wherein saidhousing has bracket means mounted thereon for supporting a roll of saidabsorbent web means and a spring plate member for supporting said web incontact with said brush means, said spring plate member furtherincluding portions which bias said web into contact with at least onefeed roller which is driven by said means for advancing.
 10. The wipingapparatus of claim 9 wherein said spring plate member includes portionson either side of said brush for biasing said web into contact with apair of spaced feed rollers which are driven by said means foradvancing.